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Coinbase users are moving their funds to wallets and exchanges where they will be credited for Bitcoin Cash (BCC ) tokens, causing delays in Bitcoin withdrawals from the exchange.

Coinbase, the world’s largest (and often highest-rated) Bitcoin exchange, has made it clear that they will not honor the new Bitcoin Cash (BCC) token created by the Bitcoin blockchain split set to occur on August 1. Coinbase’s policy is to only support one version of a digital currency, as stated in a July 27 blog post:

Our policy is to support only one version of a digital currency. In order to determine which fork to support we look at factors such as size of the network, market value and customer demand. We make this decision carefully because safely supporting a new digital currency requires significant work for many teams.

Many other exchanges and wallets, however, are supporting the new blockchain and its token. Users with BTC funds in exchanges like Kraken, Bitfinex, and ViaBTC will be credited with an equal amount of BCC when the UAHF activates on August 1 at 12:20 PM UTC.

The Great Bitcoin Exodus

The result has been somewhat predictable: Users looking to scoop up “free BCC tokens” are now leaving Coinbase en masse and Bitcoin’s service has become degraded as a result. Coinbase’s status page now indicates that outgoing BTC transactions may be delayed by up to 12+ hours as they process their backlog.

Coinbase is also recommending that users who wish to withdrawal Bitcoins before the hard fork do so before 10 AM on July 31:

If you wish to withdraw bitcoin (BTC) before the hard fork, we recommend you initiate your withdrawal by 10am PT on Monday July 31st due to potential network congestion.

There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch

Given the stance many have taken that the BCC coin split will essentially be “free money” for Bitcoin holders, it seems almost common sense to leave Coinbase in anticipation of the hard fork. However, many have warned that there is no such thing as free money – any profits scraped from BCC will have to come from somewhere, in this case from the BTC price itself.

BCC is not free money! When BTC forks you will still have the same value but it will be split between #BTC and BCC. What happens next……

Speculation is also rampant over what will happen to the price of each currency. BTC supporters predict BCC recipients will quickly dump the new coin to buy more BTC, wiping out the new coin and driving the price of BTC back up as buyers scramble to acquire “free” Bitcoins.

Others remain cautious of any price movements, especially in the immediate aftermath of the fork. Kraken has already warned users in a July 27 notice that “margin traders should be very cautious across the fork” and to “plan for the possibility of extreme volatility”:

Margin traders are advised to be very cautious across the fork, by either reducing their position sizes or closing out entirely before the fork. In addition to the special provisions described above, margin traders should plan for the possibility of extreme volatility and unfavorable forced liquidations surrounding the fork.

Do you support the new BCC token? Do you think BTC holders will reap profit from the chain split, or will the volatility only drive down prices?

DOJ trial attorney Amy Matchison said at a court hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley Thursday that the IRS has been in talks with Coinbase about narrowing its request to only items the agency would need to look for unreported income.

The latest information from the courts was greeted warmly by commentators within the cryptocurrency community, with some even suggesting an information restriction would be a decisive blow to IRS interests.

Nonetheless, Coinbase is unlikely to get the major break it is looking for, despite the IRS actions being heavily criticized by the company itself, its users and even politicians.

All parties voiced dismay at the “broad” nature of the information requests, with Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Ut), Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and by Vern Buchanan and Kevin Brady, who head the House Committee on Ways and Means describing them as “extremely burdensome, and highly intrusive to a large population of individuals.”

No End In Sight

The legal process has dragged on since December 2016, with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong standing firm on the company’s position.

A potential compromise in the form of a B-1099 tax deduction form for customers was introduced in January, but the idea has yet to see any form of implementation.

“Coinbase and the IRS have (I believe) a shared goal to ensure all U.S. customers pay their taxes,” Armstrong wrote at the time.

Coinbase’s Multifaceted Problems

The intervening months have seen further problems for both Coinbase and its sister exchange GDAX, with Armstrong’s team now facing a battle on several fronts.

Especially conspicuous in terms of publicity were the services’ technical problems in May and June as Bitcoin and Ethereum volatility combined with a surge in user demand to cause shutdowns, missing funds and a lack of customer support.

Correspondingly, “rebuilding pieces of our backend” and “Scaling customer support and providing faster response times” were key promises Armstrong laid out in Coinbase’s Q3 roadmap, published June 21.

What do you think about the latest developments in the Coinbase vs. IRS debacle? Let us know in the comments below!

Taxing times continue at Coinbase as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) reveals only 800 people report Bitcoin gains on returns annually.

IRS: 800 People Per Year Reporting and Falling

The exchange and wallet provider is currently facing enforced submission of its transaction records after the IRS went to court earlier this month.

In data released as part of the lawsuit, the authority reveals that in 2015 only 802 people reported Bitcoin gains on tax form 8949, and that the number had been decreasing year on year.

“The IRS searched the MTRDB for Form 8949 data for tax years 2013 through 2015,” the affidavit from IRS agent David Utzke quoted by Fortune reads.

Coinbase responded to the new pressure to reveal its customers’ history last week by saying it “remains concerned with the indiscriminate and over broad scope of the government’s summons” and its legal team was reviewing the situation.

We will continue to work with the IRS to assess the government’s willingness to fundamentally reconsider the focus and scope of the summons. If it does not, we anticipate filing opposition papers in court in coming months.

Coinbase: ‘Don’t Store Funds On Coinbase’

While the company, which has served over 6.2 million customers, fights regulators on one front, no less burdensome is the current climate within the Bitcoin industry itself.

Escalating mining fees caused Coinbase to halt payment of fees for customer transactions from March 21, while most recently, it even began advising customers not to hold funds on its exchange books.

The warning to store bitcoins outside its exchange was due to potential implications of a hard fork, namely restricting access to customer funds which plagued the Ethereum hard fork in summer 2016.

“Customers who wish to access both blockchains at the time of the hard fork should withdraw their BTC from Coinbase since we cannot guarantee what will happen during the hard fork or when this access may be available,” an accompanying post from Director at Coinbase David Farmer read Sunday.

Customers should take note that they will not be able to withdraw bitcoin from or deposit bitcoin to Coinbase for a period of up to 24 hours or more following the fork. In the event of a hard fork of the Bitcoin protocol, Coinbase may suspend the ability to buy or sell on our platform during this time.

Coinbase was not one of the exchanges which signed a joint letter Friday stating a hard fork would mean Bitcoin Core would retain the BTC ticker, while Bitcoin Unlimited would become BTU.

What do you think about Coinbase’s handling of the IRS and hard fork possibilities? Let us know in the comments below!

Coinbase and and Coinfabrik join forces, Jaxx integrates with ShapeShift, and more bank heists may be on the way. Want to see what you’ve been missing? Take a look at some of this week’s Bitcoin news below.

BANK SECURITY

Banks are once again being warned of potential cyber-attacks. This time, the warning comes in light of the hacks that occurred within banking institutions tied to the Swift network, whom US regulators claim cannot do enough to protect its partners.

The US Federal Financial Examination Council is warning all banks that the time has come to take matters into their own hands, as more cyber-attacks are imminent, and little can be done about them.

This is particularly rough news to smaller banks, who usually don’t bear the budgets or other necessary means to block their vulnerabilities from malicious parties. The Swift platform is doing all it can to stop these vulnerabilities from being exposed, but this is likely to take some time, and banks are being warned to keep their eyes and ears open for anything that may appear suspicious.

COINFABRIK AND COINBASE BREAK BITCOIN’S LANGUAGE BARRIERS

What prevents business relations among men? Cultural differences, maybe? What about currency exchange rates? While these two items certainly have a hand in the arena, language barriers can also get in the way.

CoinFabrik and Coinbase are now joining to potentially solve this problem, and allow all users of cryptocurrency to partake in its pleasures.

Coinfabrik is a cryptocurrency design and consulting firm. Presently, they are bringing a new Coinbase API to light that can be translated into up to 26 different languages, including Android, Javascript, and others.

The new API is slated to bring further Coinbase support to users in both short-term and feature-length versions.

JAXX

All three currencies are supported via Jaxx’s wallet, and now users can take advantage of all of them. Everyone owning the latest version of the wallet will have this trait available. The wallet is presently available for all primary computer operating systems, along with Android, Chrome, and Firefox. Apple is also slated to present its version in due time.

Know any stories that deserve to be included in our special Industry Report series? Post your thoughts and ideas below!

There are rumors floating around on the Internet stating how Overstock.com would no longer be accepting Bitcoin payments. That is not the case, as the payment method is still listed on their checkout page. Judd Bagley of Overstock has also confirmed the company will keep accepting Bitcoin payments.

No Reason To Panic For Overstock.com Users

The confusion started becoming more apparent when one Reddit user posted a screenshot of a chat conversation with one of the Overstock.com representatives. However, this conversation was “from a friend”, and evidence like that always has to be taken with several pinches of salt. As you can see in the discussion below, the representative mentioned how Bitcoin is no longer an accepted payment method.

This caused quite a bit of consternation among Bitcoin enthusiasts on Reddit, although these claims were deemed invalid when someone pointed out how Bitcoin is still on the checkout page. After a different company representative had checked with the marketing supervisor, it turned out Bitcoin is still accepted, but the company removed their rewards pay option.

Some users may have experienced issues when trying to complete a Bitcoin purchase on Overstock.com, which may return an error regarding an invalid certificate. However, this doesn’t seem to be a problem on the end of the company, but rather an unknown issue with their payment processor, which is Coinbase.

Although this shows how not all of the Overstock.com support agents are informed about the Bitcoin situation, the important thing is that cryptocurrency payments are still possible. There may be some training left to do in regards to customer support staff and the payment methods Overstock.com is accepting, though, but that is a topic for a different discussion.

Judd Bagley, the Communications Director of Overstock.com, was notified of this confusion on Reddit and weighed in on the current bitcoin situation. He stated how “Bitcoin remains in our DNA, and on our checkout page”, which puts all of the speculation to rest. He later on confirmed that statement on Twitter.

What are your thoughts on this story? Was the Bitcoin transaction issue a problem due to a Coinbase SSL bug? Let us know in the comments below!

COINBASE

Bitcoin exchange Coinbase is changing its name to Global Digital Asset Exchange (GDAX) after announcing support for Ether trading on its platform. Why is Ether suddenly all the rage? Recently, Ethereum has launched the world’s largest crowdfunding campaign for its new DAO project, which is being hyped as the ultimate way to allocate capital. The campaign has managed to raise over $150 million USD, and everyone wants a piece of the action. Coinbase is now aiming to accommodate the growing list of financial institutions eager to trade Ether and bitcoin, respectively.

Ether has been a long-time rival of bitcoin, and now it’s finally earning its big moment in the spotlight. Vice-president of business development at Coinbase Adam White stated confidently:

“We’re very excited about Ethereum. There has been a ton of progress made in the last six to nine months… We have seen hundreds of emerging decentralized apps (applications launched on Ethereum… What’s powerful about ethereum is that I can write self-executing contracts, and I can run them on Ethereum, and it’s not on any central server or computer.”

BITCOIN CAN’T GET OFF DRUGS

Bitcoin’s reputation has long been tainted by its use in illicit activities. Despite the fall of the original Silk Road and its successors, the sale of drugs and firearms via the deep web hasn’t shown many signs of slowing down.

Things ultimately took a downward turn for Mancini when an informant told ESU police of the drug deals that were allegedly taking place on school grounds. It is believed that Mancini purchased the LSD at $9 a hit, and kept some for himself before dealing the rest to assorted colleagues. One too many orders led to suspicion among authorities, who upon inspecting the contents of the student’s latest delivery, proceeded to arrest Mancini for purported drug trafficking.

SILK ROAD 3.0

In what appears to be an effort to go “clean and sober,” Silk Road 3.0 has returned after a period of non-use and announced a charity drive set for June 8th, 2016. Approximately $5 from every sale will be donated to the Last Door Recovery Society, a drug and alcohol treatment center based in Vancouver. While the site will not necessarily be used for legal services, the owners are attempting to set people in the right direction and encourage “responsible use” among those who engage in “mind-altering substances.”

Additionally, those behind the charity’s operation have stated that they will be donating from their own pockets in an attempt to increase funds and promote bitcoin usage. All the while, the owners aim to silence suspicious parties by stating they are worried less about making money and more about ensuring user privacy.

Know of any good stories that should be included in our next industry report? Tell us about them below!

This past week saw a lot of hot news stories coming from the Bitcoin community and the organizations powering the growth of the ecosystem. Bitcoin Classic appeared in the news a few times throughout the week, reminding us that the block size debate is far from over. In terms of price, not much happened at the macro level. Hardly any change took place between the open and close of the week, with the price falling less than one percent in total. However, the day-to-day activity certainly gave traders a lot to be excited about, with a lot of big declines and welcome gains.

Daily Bitcoin Price Action

Weekly News Re-Hash: Bitcoin Core Gains Momentum

Our week began on Monday, February 22, 2015 with the bitcoin price at $437.07, holding on to the gains made in the previous week. Monday saw fairly calm market activity, the price hovering in the mid-to-high $430s. Bitcoin peaked at $440 in the evening, but quickly returned to that $430s range that characterized the day’s activity.

Tuesday started at $437.96, but would quickly fall dramatically. At 3 AM, the markets took a dive, and the bitcoin price fell from $435 at the top of the hour to $422 at the close, with an hourly low of $416. The price stayed in this lower range for the rest of the day, floating between the high $410s and the mid $420s.

Meanwhile, on Bitcoinist, we reported about the new release of Bitcoin Core version 0.12.0 and its new improvements. Additionally, we reported on a development from the Free Ross campaign. FreeRoss.org released a rare home video of Ross Ulbricht. The Free Ross campaign is ran by Ulbricht’s mother, who is fighting to help her son get an appeal for what they believe was an unfair sentencing for his involvement with Silk Road.

The 24th started out on a negative note, the price plunging from $419 to the low $410s in the opening hour of the day. Throughout the rest of the day, though, the markets staged a modest recovery from this dive, rising back into the mid $420s. Towards the end of the day, the price took a small dip, falling to the low $420s to close out the day.

More Bitcoin Classic news came to light on Wednesday the 24th. We reported that five Bitcoin ATM operators switched to Classic. Sumbits, Tobitcoin, Herocoin, Coinucopia and Bitlove switched to the Bitcoin Core competitor. This change affected 29 Bitcoin ATMs in North America.

Bitcoin mining pool F2Pool threatened to withdraw consensus support from the February 21 roundtable due to allegations regarding Adam Back’s self-designation as an “individual” rather than the CEO of BlockStream when announcing his support for consensus.

February 25 opened with the price at $419.22, almost no change over the start of the previous day. The markets stayed quiet during the 25th, staying well within the low $420s range.

In the news, we reported on newly-surfaced court documents suggesting that the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation and Carnegie Mellon University colluded to attack the TOR network. In November 2015, the Tor Project accused the FBI of paying $1 million USD to the university in exchange for its help in revealing users on the TOR network. These court documents at least partially confirmed these claims, reporting that the FBI did in fact use the university’s academic resources to aid in the takedown of the Silk Road 2.0 marketplace.

E-Coin announced a major rebranding, changing its name to Wirex and adding new services to its platform. These services, including a new mobile app and two-way bitcoin debit cards, are aimed at “bridging the gap between blockchain technology and traditional finance.”

Friday the 26th kicked off with the bitcoin price at $420.32, a little more than a dollar above the opening price on Thursday. The first half of the day saw extremely flat trading activity, with the price refusing to budge above or below $424. However, the price jumped upwards heading into the evening hours, reaching a peak of $435 at 7 PM. This explosion in buying leveled out, as the day came to a close, bringing the price down to the low $430s.

At Bitcoinist, we posted a new job listing. We are looking for a sales manager to lead the charge on securing ad deals for our website to help build revenue. We are looking for someone with experience in online sales who can help build one of the most trusted websites in the Bitcoin news industry.

Also on the 26th, popular wallet-exchange hybrid Coinbase published a blog post telling the public that it is “not a wallet.” Responding to criticism regarding the company’s privacy policies and exchange-hosted wallets in general, Coinbase explained that it is not meant to be a place to store large amounts of bitcoins. Instead, the company’s goal is to bridge the gap between the legacy financial system and the bitcoin economy, and then later evolving into a “retail exchange” as Bitcoin becomes more prominent in the mainstream.

February 27 started out at $431.46, a significant gain over the start of the previous day. Coming off the high of Friday’s rally, the markets stayed very calm for most of the day, with very little fluctuation in the bitcoin price. The fell into the mid $420s at 7 PM, though, where it would stay for the remainder of the night.

Sunday, February 28 began with the bitcoin price at $424.81, remaining in the mid $420s range following the late-day fall on Saturday. After minimal activity during the early morning hours, the markets picked up at 9 AM and the price began moving upwards. Bitcoin returned to the mid $430s and then plateaued at midday, staying in that range until the evening hours. The price began moving upwards again, climbing to $437. The day closed at $436.65, making for a very small decline of 0.10% for the entire week.

What do you think will happen in the Bitcoin world in the coming week? Let us know in the comments below!

Wall of Coins is a peer-to-peer bitcoin marketplace that lets users buy and sell bitcoin without compromising privacy or security. Customers report that this exchange is fast, with an average order fulfillment time of around 10 minutes.

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored story. Bitcoinist is not responsible for the products and/or services of this company.

Wall of Coins: Buying and Selling Made Easy

A Wall of Coins representative said:

“Wall of Coins is the easiest place to liquidate Bitcoin on the planet. You get cash immediately and securely at the price you determine. Say goodbye to waiting days for an ACH transfer, and say so-­long to paying any fees.”

Being able to cash out your coins without waiting on an ACH transfer is actually kind of a big deal. Competitors that do use the ACH transfer system, like Coinbase, generally require sellers to wait around 2-4 business days before their fiat appears in their bank accounts. These delays make bitcoin fairly illiquid, greatly diminishing the utility of the Bitcoin network’s fast confirmation times and borderless transactions.

The exchange touts its speed and efficiency in connecting buyers and sellers through its Buying Wizard. With the Wizard, users get funds sent directly to any address they choose, eliminating any waiting time that may come from internal confirmation processes on other exchanges. Users should be able to have their funds sent to any Bitcoin market instantly. To use the Wizard, traders enter their bitcoin addresses and wait for the order to complete, and then their coins “are sent instantly to the market.”

Wall of Coins claims top-notch security as well. Genitrust CEO Robert Genito says that his team at Wall of Coins employed security analysts and “ethical hackers” to build the exchange from the ground-up, ensuring that it protects user funds.

One of the exchange’s strongest security features is a unique technology it uses called “Rapid Cold Storage.” This system allows Wall of Coins to send transactions from cold storage just as fast as transactions sent from multi-sig wallets. Therefore, Rapid Cold Storage is comparable to hot wallets in speed, but boasts increased security, keeping keys away from online systems. Furthermore, the company says that their offline machines actually offer “more robust” protection than multi-signature technology, suggesting an extremely secure storage system.

To protect buyer privacy, Wall of Coins does not require users to give up banking information, allowing them to trade without linking an account.

Sellers can also get cash immediately sent to any secure financial system they choose, including bank accounts, credit unions, Moneygram and Western Union.

The team running the company is composed of experienced Bitcoiners. According to them:

“We are all seasoned veterans, with some of us having sold Bitcoin since 2011. We understand these problems intimately, and have developed technology to solve all problems related to selling coins for cash.”

Operating for over a year, Wall of Coins customers have made their satisfaction known. The company provides users with a free customer service hotline operated in a live call center, as well as a live chat system on the website.

The team also works to provide stress-free trading to its customers by doing “all the heavy lifting for its sellers.” With its peer-to-peer market and its emphasis on security, Wall of Coins aims to provide a trading experience where users don’t have to “worry about finding liquidity for large orders, or the fear of robbery.”

Wall of Coins has also made its API available to anyone. Through the API “we’ve allowed ANYONE to offer the same Buy/Sell functionality [as us],” Genito says, “what does this mean? Well think of Gildera and Airbitz: Airbitz was able to offer their users the ability to load their wallet with bitcoin (using Gildera) — we did something similar with Post Share wallet almost a year ago.”

This company is run by Genitrust, a privately-funded corporation. Since its creation in 2013, Genitrust has specialized in Bitcoin software solutions. The profits they have made from their endeavors in early mining, GPU co-location, ASIC mining, ASIC co-location through HashingPlex, and the “Sell Bitcoin” app on Wall of Coins have gone back into the Bitcoin ecosystem to ensure its continued growth.

What do you think about Wall of Coins? Let us know in the comments below!

The San Francisco-based Bitcoin exchange CEO Brian Armstrong recently wrote a Medium blog post called “Coinbase is Not a Wallet.” Armstrong believes some customers are confused about the company thinking of it as this type of service. In the beginning, the business originally set out to be a wallet service but over time has become a “regulated exchange.”

“We set out to build a bitcoin wallet, but it turns out we were building a retail exchange.”— Brian Armstrong, CEO Coinbase

Coinbase Is a Regulated Exchange ‘Not a Wallet’

Armstrong is concerned that “hybrid wallet/exchanges” such as Coinbase and others have caused confusion within the industry. Lots of exchanges not only enable the purchasing and selling of the digital currency but also have a wallet within the exchange architecture. Currently, Armstrong’s company has 80% of its customer base using the service to purchase and sell Bitcoin. 20% of users are using it for day-to-day wallet transactions and storage. The Coinbase CEO says there is a strong difference between these types of services. Armstrong states in the blog, “I feel like a lot of confusion and anger has been voiced by customers who thought they were using us as a wallet, and didn’t realize they were using a (regulated) exchange. I want to make it perfectly clear going forward that Coinbase will focus on being an exchange.”

Retail exchanges are an easy way to convert government issued fiat in and out of Bitcoin says, Armstrong. This means less privacy and building relationships with “banks and regulators,” and wallets are meant for individual privacy. Armstrong explains, “they want to use all sorts of innovative apps that are emerging in bitcoin. Often they want privacy. And the way you’d measure success in a wallet is probably by the number of transactions sent per day.”

The company knows its service is a popular method of storage. Coinbase says it stores nearly 10% of all Bitcoin in circulation between its multi-sig vaults, and company controlled cold storage. Armstrong says that security is a top priority for the business and people will continue to use it as a wallet. However, he believes the 80/20% numbers in about five years could be “inverted.” This is why over the next year the CEO says Coinbase will be changing its focus. Armstrong says this entails:

We will add as many payment methods as possible to make it convenient for people to get their money into and out of bitcoin all over the world. I think this will be an incredible force for good in the bitcoin ecosystem to help it grow.

We will continue to be a regulated business and proactively work with governments, banks, and regulators around the world to educate them about bitcoin.

We will continue to comply with financial services laws, and our customers should expect as much. You will not be anonymous if you decide to use Coinbase.

Not that this news should come as a surprise to hardcore Bitcoin enthusiasts, but it does solidify the Coinbase company interests and goals within the industry. Users should understand that using the service will not be anonymous and will be regulated through government policies. Other cryptocurrency solution exchanges may not feel the same way and may want to cover both aspects of buying/selling with day-to-day wallet use as well. Coinbase is making its stance quite clear and wants people to understand exactly what they are.

What do you think about Brian Armstrong saying Coinbase is not a wallet? Let us know in the comments below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock, the Coinbase Website, and Wiki Commons

Green candles dominated the charts for most of the week, as the bitcoin price climbed upwards towards $400. We finally broke that barrier late in the week, reaching $403.20 as it came to a close, making for a total gain of 7.22%. The week was also marked with some rather significant news. To name a few stories that broke this week: Valve may be accepting bitcoin in the near future, Coinbase adopted Bitcoin Classic, and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was found dead in a hotel room at age 79.

Daily Bitcoin Price Action

Weekly News Roundup

Avalon 6 RPi and EVGA PSU

Monday, February 8, 2016 opened with the bitcoin price at $376.04. The first day of our week had a fairly downward trend in terms of market activity, with only a few green candles breaking through the overwhelming downward pressure. By the end of the 2 PM hour, the price fell from $375 to $371, and continued to fall for the rest of the day, even dipping below $370 right at the close of the day.

Tuesday began at $370.23, several dollars lower than the start of the previous day. After a return to the mid $370s during the morning hours, market activity slowed down and the bitcoin price leveled out, hovering between the mid and low $370s for the rest of the day. Towards the end of the night, the price embarked upon a climb, which continued into Wednesday morning.

On Tuesday, we reported on a large discovery regarding Valve accepting bitcoin. A Reddit user found several lines on Steam’s translation servers that indicate a bitcoin implementation into their game marketplace. It appears as if Steam will use the Bitpay API to process payments when this implementation goes live. This is huge news for Bitcoin, as Steam boasts 125 million users worldwide.

February 10 opened at $374.51, and improvement over the 9th, but still below the price seen at the beginning of the week. The price climb that launched late Tuesday night fizzled out rather quickly, reaching a plateau of $377 around 4 AM. After a jump to $380 at 8 AM, the bitcoin price went sideways for the rest of the day, hovering between $379 and $380.

Thursday the 11th started out with the bitcoin price at $377.49, finally climbing above the week’s opening price. The markets’ sideways trend from Wednesday carried over into the 11th, with the price seeing virtually no change aside from a brief dip in the afternoon.

Meanwhile, in the news, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong announced that his company will be switching to Bitcoin Classic, the latest scalability-focused BIP in the ongoing Bitcoin blocksize debate. This was a controversial decision for Coinbase; as one of the leading companies in the ecosystem, Coinbase’s decision to adopt Classic will surely influence many other people’s views on the block size issue.

Market activity on Friday was characterized by slow, drawn out growth. Starting out at $378.89, the bitcoin price crawled upwards throughout the day. After a flat spot during the afternoon, where the price stayed around $383, the markets sent Bitcoin upwards just a little bit further, pushing the price into the high $380s right at the end of the day.

February 13 opened with the bitcoin price at $387.48. Most of the day was spent flirting with $390 without fully getting over the threshold. However, that barrier was broken in the evening, when the price finally hit $390 at 6PM. After passing the $390 mark, the price took off, hitting the high $390s towards the end of the day.

We reported on a major development in US law and politics Wednesday. Reports surfaced of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia being found dead in a Texas hotel room, where he was on a hunting trip. These reports were confirmed a few hours after they first appeared. Justice Scalia was 79 years old and had served in the Supreme Court for 29 years, making him the longest-service Justice out of all current members.

Sunday, February 14, started at $394.45, a notable increase over the start of the previous day. The bitcoin price broke $400 early in the morning. However, the markets couldn’t sustain $400 very long, and the price quickly dipped into the high $390s. The rest of the morning and afternoon was spent struggling between $399 and $400. Around 7 PM, though, the markets firmly broke the $400 threshold, climbing into the low $400s, even flirting with $410 for a brief period of time. The week closed out at midnight, with the bitcoin price sitting at $403.20, making for a 7.22% gain overall.

What do you think will happen in the Bitcoin world in the coming week? Let us know in the comments below!